"Room of Requirement?" Sirius asked Lily as he and Beth came into the corridor. Lily nodded, leaning against James. When they arrived in the corridor outside the room, Sirius paced until a door formed in the wall. They entered a comfortable room with two couches, a couple of blankets, and a coffee table with a pitcher of water and glasses on it.

James pulled Lily on his lap as soon as she sat down. Beth and Sirius sat on the opposite couch, Sirius hauling Beth up close against him. He held her tightly, trying not to let her see how shaken he was. He had managed to push Wilkes' threatening words out of his mind the past several minutes but now they came rushing back and he wearily tried to tamp them down. One thing at a time. He knew James was going to go ballistic when he heard their story.

Sirius looked at Lily apologetically. "I know you worked hard on that potion, Lily."

"It's safer to have it destroyed," Lily met his sympathetic gaze without blinking.

"What the bloody hell is going on?" James' patience was clearly at its limit. He stared in turn at Lily, Sirius, and Beth and then back to Lily. "Lily, please tell me."

Lily bit her lip. "You were right, James. Severus was dangerous though not exactly to me. He wanted my help to figure out the Sanare Potion so they could use if for the Death Eaters to torture wizards."

James leaped up from the couch. "I'm going to fucking kill him!" he ejaculated. He started towards the door but Sirius' curt voice cut him off. "You can't, Prongs. He doesn't know we know. You'll ruin it if you go after him."

James froze. "What do you mean he doesn't know we know?"

"Sit down, James. Please?" Lily had risen from the couch and she went to James, holding his arm entreatingly. "It's a long story." James stared at her imploring face and nodded. He came back to the couch and sat down, Lily curling up next to him. "Parts of this are going to make you upset, James," Lily began. "Try to stay calm." James nodded again tersely and she started from when she woke up in the morning with a new theory to try for the potion.

For the next half hour, James listened, clenching his fists and glaring stonily in the direction of the Hospital Wing as the narrative unfolded. He jumped up and paced around their couches when she told him what Wilkes had said about giving her a bump on her head, needing to stop her to swear for a few minutes. A harsh look of satisfaction came over his face at Sirius' recounting the odd angle of one of Wilkes' legs after Sirius pushed Wilkes down the stairs. When they finished, Sirius flicked his wand and a punching bag swung gently from the ceiling in front of James as he paced. James spent a few minutes pummeling it, his fist hitting the bag the only sounds in the room. He came back rubbing his knuckles to flop on the couch and closed his eyes, leaning his head against the back of the couch. Lily looked at Sirius and Beth uneasily and then carefully cupped her hand on the side of James' face. "James?" she said softly.

James opened his eyes and stared at Lily. "I'm just trying to take this all in," he told her. He put his arms around her and pulled her on his lap again. "Fuck, Lily, this is going to give me nightmares."

She clung to him. "Me too," she whispered. "I'm sorry I trusted Severus."

"I'm sorry too, love," James said quietly to her. He frowned again, running his hand through his hair in frustration, his voice rising. "I wasn't even there to help you."

"That wasn't your fault," Lily pointed out. "You were keeping an eye on me even though I tried to talk you out of it."

James didn't look convinced. "Are you really alright?" James touched the cut and burn marks on her face. "These look like real injuries."

"They are," Lily admitted. "I guessed Madam Pomfrey would examine me. She'd know if the injuries were faked so I made real ones."

Sirius swore his apology. "Bloody hell Lily. I didn't think of that."

Lily shook her head at him. "Are you kidding? These are minor. I can never thank you enough for all you did." She gestured at Beth and him across the table. "How did you two come to be there in the first place?"

"Beth overheard Snape change your meeting time," Sirius explained. "She got suspicious and came to find me."

Lily gaped at Beth. "Why did that make you suspicious?"

"I don't think you noticed how Snape and Wilkes were watching you in the Great Hall at breakfast," Beth said. "There was something odd about the way they stared. When I heard Snape talk to you later, I thought it was strange he hadn't talked to you at breakfast but made sure you were alone so no one else knew you'd be with him. I knew James was in a meeting with Professor McGonagall so I told Sirius."

Sirius nodded. "It took us awhile to find you. You were in a different classroom than you've worked in before."

Lily frowned. "Yes, Severus told me other students were using the Potions classroom. I just believed him without checking, but who would be in a classroom at 8:00 on a Saturday?"

"You were," Beth pointed out loyally. "Other students may have been working on a project too."

Sirius looked at James. "Prongs, we had to make you think Lily was hurt. We had to use you to make it look believable. I thought you'd go after Snape if you knew the truth."

James swore again but then sighed in agreement. "You were right. I would not have been able to stop myself from pounding his face in or doing more damage with my wand." He looked at Lily ruefully. "I can't hide my feelings when it comes to you, Lil." Lily took his hand and brought it to her lips, her eyes bright.

"You made it work," Sirius said. "Snape, Rosier and McGonagall saw how upset you were about Lily. They know you well enough to know you would have come after them in the heat of the moment if you thought they had tried to hurt her. Snape thinks you don't know about his planned treachery. This way they won't come after Lily to try and force her to tell them how to make the potion. It was lucky for us Rosier didn't show up until we'd set everything up."

James looked disgusted. "Lucky? You think we were lucky?"

Sirius gave James a level stare. "Hell, yes we were lucky. They were overconfident they would only be taking on Lily or they would have had Rosier with Wilkes hiding out in the closet and who knows who else. It was lucky they never caught us checking on Snape and Lily in past meetings, thanks to your invisibility cloak. Snape changed the meeting time and place as a precaution, but overall they were pretty cavalier about how they stole the potion."

James' lips twisted as the impact of Sirius' words sunk in. He reached out to comb his fingers through Lily's hair. "Shit, Lil. My prat of a best mate is right. You could have been all alone with those scurvy Death Eating pricks."

"But I wasn't," Lily reminded him soothingly. "Sirius and Beth were there." She captured his hand with hers and held it against her cheek.

"I was afraid I was going to blow it for us," Beth confessed nervously. "When McGonagall questioned me, I almost panicked."

Sirius nodded. "Actually, you did look upset, but that seemed normal for what we claimed had just happened. You sounded like you were telling the truth."

"What about when Wilkes is found injured?" Lily asked, her lower lip trembling. "Won't that be too much of a coincidence for her to believe?"

There was silence for a minute. Sirius spoke up first. "She'll probably put two and two together and suspect the two accidents might be connected. But she knows Wilkes, Rosier and Snape are in league with the Death Eaters. She won't let on to them." He shook his head ruefully. "McGonagall will be wise enough to let it go."

"You're going to have to tell Snape you can't work with him anymore," James told Lily, his voice harsh.

"I couldn't stand to work with him again," Lily shuddered. "Sirius wisely destroyed the potion instructions. It will be easy to make Severus think it's not worth it to start over with less than we began with after all this."

James shot Sirius a grateful look which Sirius knew encompassed much more than destroying the book. He gave James an understanding look in return and James turned back to cradle Lily tightly again. Beth was watching Sirius, her eyes warm but with a trace of sadness. Sirius kissed her forehead. "I know you'll always miss her," he whispered.

Beth wrapped her arms around him. "Diane would have really liked you," she said, pressing her face against his chest. Sirius closed his eyes against her hair. Now that it was over, Wilkes' words kept revolving through his head making his stomach drop. He had to think it over. His first priority had to be keeping Beth safe.

"We need to leave here fairly soon," Sirius said after allowing Lily and James several minutes to recover. He could feel Beth's warm breath on his neck as he cradled her in his arms. Lily and James were lying together on the couch opposite, Lily's eyes closed while James' stared unseeingly above her head, his face hard. "We can't just disappear all morning. McGonagall will come to check on us and the rumors of the potion exploding are probably already starting."

"I should go by the hospital wing to get the salve for my burns from Madam Pomfrey," Lily untangled herself from James reluctantly.

"I'll take you," James said. "Though I'm not sure I'm ready to see Snape yet."

"Check the map and see where he is before you go," Sirius suggested. "He'll probably be in one of the back beds for observation or will have been released."

"Lily, who is the biggest gossip in Gryffindor?" James asked.

"Amy Allen. She's a sixth year."

"Let's make sure we tell her our version of the potion story right away," James said. "We might as well spread the story the way we want it."

"I'll go find Marlene and ask her to tell Amy," Beth said. "It will seem more natural coming from me as everyone will expect Lily to be upset."

"Peter and Remus are going to Hogsmeade this afternoon with Jerry and Mark. They can spread it to them. Jerry and Mark are Hufflepuffs," Sirius explained to Beth. Beth stood up and reached a hand down to Sirius to help him up. "I'm starving," he said surprised to realize his body still expected food. "I forgot I never had breakfast."

They split up outside the Room of Requirement. "I'll come to the Great Hall after I talk to Marlene," Beth told Sirius. Lily and James left quickly to find Remus and get the map.

Once Beth had started the rumor circulating, she ran down the stairs to find Sirius. She stopped at the entrance to the Great Hall and looked in. It was late morning, early for lunch on a Saturday and the Great Hall was mostly empty. Sirius was sitting a few spots down from some other Gryffindors laughing and chatting, but he was clearly ignoring them as he stared off into the distance tensely. Beth watched him for a minute, a slight discomfort growing in her. It had been a stressful morning and Sirius had been the one who had handled (and handled very well) the skirmish with the Slytherins. Yet he seemed more upset now that it was over than she would have guessed. She walked around the edges of the hall until she was behind him and then ran her hands down his chest as she draped herself over his shoulder. "Hey there," she said close to his ear.

Sirius started in surprise, but relaxed quickly under her hands. Beth's fingers moved up to his shoulders. "How are you holding up?" she asked softly.

Sirius frowned at her as if disgruntled she felt she needed to ask. "I'm fine."

Beth swung onto the bench next to him. "You're a good man to have in a pinch."

Sirius shrugged. "I had the element of surprise. The rest was just basic magic."

Beth shook her head. "No, it was more than that. You figured out quickly what was going on and came up with a workable ruse. You thought out all the angles and covered every base. You will make an excellent Auror. You know how to control your emotions and to do what it takes." Under the table, she captured his hand and held it. Her face was glowing, her eyes bright on his.

Sirius felt his chest grow warm with her words. He ducked his head, slightly embarrassed. "Covered every base?" He seized on the idiom he hadn't heard though it was clear what it meant, not sure how to respond to her praise. Sirius was surprised how much her words meant to him.

"Baseball term," Beth leaned in a little closer to him. "You took care of everything, Sirius." She put her lips close to his ear. "You always take care of me. Is there something I can do to take care of you for a change?"

Sirius' eyes gleamed and his lips angled up. "I might be able to think of a way."

"I give really good massages," Beth smiled at him.

Sirius' smile got wider. "I'll be the judge of that." He stood up and taking her hand, led her upstairs.

Later that afternoon, Beth and Sirius were sitting entwined on a couch in the Common Room debating each of their country's versions of football.

"American football is way more brutal than soccer," Beth argued. "Why do you think they wear helmets and pounds of pads?"

"That depends on your definition of brutal," Sirius pointed out lazily. He had managed to shove everything to the back of his mind during Beth's massage, and now his body felt relaxed and his muscles loose. He loved winding Beth up and watching her when she argued. Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes flashed at him as she defended one of her favorite sports.

"Full-on tackling being essential to the game is part of my definition," Beth said. She gave Sirius a shove in the shoulder as if this helped illustrate her point.

"Soccer, as you Yanks call it, is more brutal in terms of the players have to be in better shape," Sirius noted. "They have to run non-stop the entire match."

Beth snorted. "Yeah, but they don't sprint full out like many of the football players have to do."

"Football players run for fifteen seconds and then have half a minute to recover between plays," Sirius told her with a matter of fact tone in his voice. "They have more time to rest than they have to play."

"Being tackled or tackling someone also takes its toll on players," Beth said. "It's so demanding physically. You have to –" She stopped when she noticed the gleam of amusement in Sirius' eyes. Beth's eyes narrowed as she stared at him and then she smoothly switched gears. "Why are we arguing about this? They're both demanding sports in different ways. Especially compared to other sports which take far less strength, endurance and agility."

Sirius raised his eyebrows at her. "Like what?" he asked.

"Well, like bowling. Or Quidditch." Beth had to hide her face in Sirius' chest so that he wouldn't see her struggling not to laugh. She hugged him affectionately so he couldn't tell she was concealing her expression.

She felt him stiffen, his entire body suddenly tensed. "Quidditch? What the fuck are you talking about?" Sirius growled.

"You just sit on a broom in Quidditch, right?" With her head down, Beth traced a pattern with her finger on Sirius' chest stifling the urge to look at him and see the palpable outrage on his face that she could hear in his voice. Her lips twitched as she continued, "I mean, your legs aren't even moving. You just lean to change directions. You do have to throw the Quaffle, but it's not even as heavy as a bowling ball."

"You don't just sit! It's more than bloody leaning. It takes a good amount of energy and stamina to ride a broom that fast, change directions, swooping up and down." Sirius' voice was rising. "Not to mention throwing the Quaffle while keeping your balance and speed. It's fast-paced and takes coordination and conditioning."

"Most sports take coordination," Beth pointed out factually. "It just doesn't seem Quidditch is as difficult as –"

"I can't believe you put Quidditch alongside bowling." Sirius continued aghast. "That's a sodding ridiculous comparison. Senior citizens have bowling leagues. You don't see 83 year-old ladies playing Quidditch. It's a fierce, com-"

He stopped. Beth was unable to hold back any longer and had clamped her hand over her mouth as she burst out laughing. "83 year-old…" she buried her face in his chest again to suppress her loud guffaws, "la-la-ladies pl-playing Qui—Quidditch!"

Sirius looked down at the top of her head as he felt her entire body shaking with mirth. He rolled Beth to her back and pinned her hands at her sides. "Shit, you're fucking taunting me, aren't you?"

Beth continued to laugh, the corners of her eyes wet. Sirius' eyes gleamed. "Someone needs to be taught a lesson about teasing." He put his face to her stomach, lifting her shirt with his teeth.

Beth squirmed. "No, Sirius! You know how ticklish I am there!" Sirius' mouth was on her bare stomach and she writhed, laughing uncontrollably. "Y—you are s-so m-m-mean!" she managed to pant while cracking up.

"I'm mean?" Sirius stopped to grin down at her. "You purposefully desecrate my sport, and I'm mean?" He let Beth's hands go and pulled her closer to him, dropping a kiss on her forehead.

"I couldn't resist," Beth patted his cheek as if he was a child, her laughter finally subsiding. "You're such an easy target."

"You really love getting a rise out of me, don't you?" Sirius kissed her, running his hands through her hair.

"Just one of my missions in life," Beth's hand made its way down his arm slowly. "Not that it's hard." Her voice became lower.

"I'll show you wha-" Sirius started.

"Hey," James interrupted, grinning at them. "Not that this—" he waved his hand at them "whatever this is- doesn't sound fascinating, but Lily and I are still going to go to Hogsmeade. We're both a bit restless. Are you two coming?"

"No, I don't want to go Hogsmeade," Sirius felt fear at being outside of Hogwarts with Beth. He knew it was irrational, nothing was going to happen now. But he just needed to be alone with her without feeling like he needed to watch over his shoulder after their escapade this morning. "Let's stay in, Beth. I'd rather be alone with you today."

Beth lifted her eyebrows at him. "I can be persuaded," she said silkily. "But I'm out of chocolate."

Sirius shifted to reach in his pocket and threw a bag of coins to James. "I'll owe you, Prongs, if you buy Beth some chocolate."

"Sure," James caught the bag and stuffed it in his pocket. "What do you want, Beth?"

"Lily knows my favorites," Beth was still staring at Sirius. James nodded and left to find Lily. "I thought you'd been looking forward to us going to Hogsmeade," Beth said. "Why the change of heart?"

"I'm feeling base today," Sirius told her. Although it was true (it was always true), he didn't want to tell her how worried Wilkes' threat had made him. "It will be quiet here when most everyone else will be gone." He leaned over to whisper in her ear. "I'll make it worth it."

Beth giggled. "I bet you will." She met his eyes, smiling when he let his eyes sweep over her with an exaggerated leer. Beth batted at his shoulder and then sighed when he dropped his head to the crook of her neck and nuzzled one of her sensitive spots.

By the end of the evening, Beth admitted that he definitely had. It had been a long day, and her eyes fluttered shut as she lay in Sirius' arms. Sirius watched as Beth's eyes closed and her breathing became regular. Her face in repose looked young and fragile. His mind whirled, trying to figure out a way he could keep her safe these last few weeks at Hogwarts. In just a few short months, she had become the most important person in his life. School was almost over. She would be safe once she went back to her muggle world. He clung to that thought every time Wilkes' words repeated in his brain. She had to go home.

Her eyes suddenly opened wide as she woke up from her light doze and she looked surprised when she saw he was staring at her. "Sirius? What's wrong?"

He pushed back the words that rose unbidden to his tongue. "Nothing," he grunted. He tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. "Go back to sleep, babe."

Beth rolled on top of him and cupped his face with her hands, smiling down at him. "If you insist, we'll have another go. You're insatiable, you know."

Sirius let out a short bark of laughter, letting his worries recede as she started sprinkling kisses on his jaw. "I insist," he said before angling her face so his lips could meet hers.